I’ve got a busy job as a GP, a toddler at home and another child on the way as well as exams to study for. Who’s going to lose out? I leave the house of my first home visit of the day – a middle aged businessman – and walk back to my car. I recall the heat of his skin on my hand, his yellow, sunken cheeks, his racing pulse. An ambulance is on its way – I opted for the semi-urgent type, the type that comes within two hours, the type for people who are quite sick but not very sick. I wonder whether I should have chosen the very sick type, the one that races down the road, flashing blue lights and all. A message lights up the screen of my phone – “I’ve found a button in her poo.” My pregnant bump presses against the edge of my desk and I feel the familiar kick in the ribs from the one inside. As if she’s saying: “Remember I’m in here, Mummy.” I have just one week left before I go on maternity leave. I plan to take a year off and then return to work part-time. Already I am wondering how it will be possible for me to do this. It’s not that I don’t want to go back – I love my job – it’s just that I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do for my family. The cost of putting two children in childcare and the worry that I will miss out on their early years are my main concerns. Alongside this, the fact that I am still training means that I have extra work to do outside of my already very busy job. But if I don’t finish my training, all the years of work I’ve done will go to waste. I feel like I am continually striving to achieve the impossible and never feel satisfied that I am doing either job well. To be a good doctor I need to invest time in keeping my knowledge up to date but simultaneously my two-year-old needs to be the focus of my attention. I know I am in a position of privilege; I have choices women historically would never have had and (potentially) a very rewarding career ahead of me, but it all feels too much. It’s a dilemma women up and down the country face – to work, to stay at home or to do a bit of both. I have one friend who feels that it is important for her daughter to see her going out to work every day so that she can aspire to the same. I have another who has given up her career to be at home with her child. For now I have decided that the best way for me is to accept things as they are, to manage my expectations of what I can achieve at both home and work and hope everything works out all right in the long run. I will try my best to forget work on the days I spend at home and to trust that my children are in good hands on the days that I’m not. That evening, as I try to convince my two-year-old that her princess dress isn’t really suitable attire for bed, I think again of the yellowness of that man’s skin and the look of desperation in his wife’s eyes. I promise my daughter we’ll go for ice-cream in the morning if she will just let me put her pyjamas on. After all, I know only too well that life is short. Source
